Teachers and Mental Health Professionals

CPHC provides training for certification in Reflective Network Therapy for teachers, social workers and mental health professionals, including psychologists, psychiatrists, other psychotherapists and psychotherapist interns. Training is provided through on-site training, seminars, and distance learning. New practitioners are richly supported with guidance and supervision including phone consultations and state-of-the-art videoconferencing for observation, discussion and feedback. Agency directors and school administrators have found it valuable to attend presentations and discussions during training along with staff.

See also: Our MethodBenefits, and Research & Results

On-site Training
Teacher Training is conducted by CPHC certified senior staff. The training uses The Reflective Network Therapy Manual; selected readings; and videotapes of briefings, debriefings, and full therapy sessions with individual children in the classroom, which illustrate dynamic techniques, children’s immediate responses, therapeutic turning points, and long term changes. Additional training is provided by video conferencing. Therapists learn:

  • to attune and focus on a child’s interpersonal relationships and communication of here and now play, behavioral and emotional process, and to help the child mentalize that process.
  • to provide clinical leadership of the classroom team.
  • basic concepts, processes and procedures of Reflective Network Therapy

Training Procedure
Senior therapists certified by The Children’s Psychological Health Center Inc. lead a start-up weekend of training. On the third day, demonstrations are given with actual children in the real-life setting of the new site. A site’s teacher is chosen to help do briefings and debriefings, and one of the training therapists does a demonstration with several children for a morning. Discussion is held in the afternoon, based on videotapes of the morning’s work. The therapist supports and guides teachers to develop or deepen skills, achieve performance expectations and learn method techniques both explicitly and through modeling. Briefings and debriefings and working in tandem in the classroom provide opportunities for teacher training as do the weekly staff meetings. Teachers aiming at certification will provide videotapes of their work to their CPHC trainer for review, discussion and guidance. In-classroom video documentation is made at least weekly. Ten videotaped sessions of the senior clinician’s own Reflective Network Therapy work is reviewed by an RNT-trained therapist as part of personal supervision. That supervisor certifies whether the work is inclusive of and demonstrates reliable use of the basic techniques of Reflective Network Therapy, including successful use of interpretations and collaborative inclusion of material from teacher briefings. Some supervisory sessions may be facilitated by videoconferencing.

Training Mid-Level or Junior Psychotherapists
Psychotherapists who lack certification in psychoanalysis but have had sufficient relevant experience are often very effective in Reflective Network Therapy. Depending on prior levels of training, the junior and mid-level therapists will require more initial supervision than senior therapists such as analysts and Board Certified Child psychiatrists. Ideally they will receive at least 20 rather than ten supervised hours. Certified Therapists will regularly provide their RNT Supervisors with standardized reports which capture data on child patients. General Minimums for Therapist Certification in Reflective Network Therapy.

Teacher Certification in Reflective Network Therapy
Head teachers must be licensed in their state or supervised by a state licensed teacher, and have training appropriate to the age levels of their pupils. Special Education Certification is desirable for the head teacher. Teachers will study actual treatments by viewing RNT training DVDs and participate in discussion facilitated by the CPHC certified trainer or supervisor. These DVDs demonstrate many aspects of technique essential for carrying out the method. A Teacher must complete at least one semester of supervised practice in an RNT classroom with at least five children, two reaching a planned termination, at least one of the children being female, and at least one autistic or on the Pervasive Developmental Disorder spectrum.

Fast track for Senior Therapist Certification
Contact us for information about expediting the establishment of an RNT site in cases where existing patient populations are waiting to be served.

Criteria For Judging The Existence Of A Psychoanalytic Process.

General Minimums for Therapist Certification in Reflective Network Therapy.

Videos and DVDs for Training, Education, Scientific Study and Research: A Confidentiality Agreement is required

Videos on our website which include actual in-classroom treatment and DVDs available at no charge are selectively made available only to credentialed mental health and educational professionals, supervised interns and qualified advanced students in the mental health field.

Click here to complete and submit a Confidentiality Agreement.

Our extensive library of actual treatment videos has been selectively used in instructional videos which show actual in-classroom work with child patients. Some can be viewed in private videos on our website with confidentiality agreements. This valuable archive of briefings, debriefings, and full therapy sessions with individual children in the classroom illustrates uses of a spectrum of dynamic techniques, children’s immediate responses, therapeutic turning points, and long term changes. Hundreds of cross-sectional and longitudinal hours (that follow the same child, over time) of emotionally and cognitively-growing RNT-treated children comprise an archive that scholars, teachers, and therapists have parental permission to study.

DVDs: Professionals with accepted confidentiality agreements may also request DVDs of videos under the terms of the agreement. These DVDs are not for sale. They must not be copied or shared. We welcome tax deductible donations to help defray costs of production, duplication and mailing.

Distance Learning

Training in Reflective Network Therapy using high quality Video Conferencing is available for University Courses and Seminars, Mental Health Agencies and Private Practitioners.

  • Training in preschool therapy techniques for *autistic children * traumatized children *homeless or recently homeless children
  • Consultation and training in psychological first aid for children and families stricken by disasters

Skype can be used for training. However, our agency maintains a high quality video conferencing facility. If you have high quality videoconferencing at your end, we can share actual treatment sessions and discuss treatment techniques by interactive video in real time.

RNT Training: A Glimpse

RNT training led by Dr. Gilbert Kliman, MD at Cambridge Ellis School

An inside look at RNT Training: Alexandra Harrison, MD’s blog about a training at The Cambridge-Ellis School in Cambridge, MA

Presentations and Seminars

For autism associations, education conferences, scientific meetings, potential service sites, universities and mental health agencies Gilbert Kliman, MD, Medical Director, The Children’s Psychological Health Center, is frequently asked to make presentations at professional meetings, conferences, and for administrators, teachers and therapists working in therapeutic preschools and public school special education programs. In a typical two-day workshop, participants gain practical technical abilities in Reflective Network Therapy and see how it is used with a variety of preschool clinical tasks. Dr. Kliman presents and discusses multiple videos depicting actual in-classroom Reflective Network Therapy sessions. Cases include children with PDD, PTSD, Asperger’s Syndrome, full-blown autism, and foster children with attachment reaction disorder. A video interview with a former child patient (36 years old at the time the video was made) is shown, in which the former patient describes her remarkable recall of what helped her to emerge from autism during her experience of Reflective Network Therapy from the age of three through six. An example of training that benefited groups of professionals is one sponsored by the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health in collaboration with The Statewide Infant-Preschool-Family Mental Health Initiative IPFMHI), and The WestEd Center for Prevention and Early Intervention (CPEI), Sacramento, California. For information on how to arrange a training in Reflective Network Therapy for your professionals, please contact us.

Opportunities for Graduate Students

Candidates for voluntary research study include trainees in child psychiatry and psychology and preschool education services. Areas of research and service emphasis include treatment outcomes with autistic and other seriously disturbed preschoolers. Contact us about proposed research projects to test several promising hypotheses regarding psychoanalytic work in the classroom using Reflective Network Therapy. Many thesis opportunities involving Reflective Network Therapy for in-classroom treatment of seriously emotionally and developmentally disordered young children exist. Volunteer assistants are needed to videotape preschool sessions. Volunteer teacher assistants are needed to assist in Cornerstone treatment sessions at The Ann Martin Center in Piedmont, California. Please contact us about additional unique training and research opportunities.

For more information about Reflective Network Therapy training and certification programs, please contact us.